Faculty & Programs

One day, tiny swimming robots may travel through the human body to deliver drugs. The medication would target only areas of need—chemotherapy drugs for a tumor, for example—avoiding healthy tissue and minimizing side effects. A research team led by Ebru Demir, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, with collaborators On Shun Pak (Santa Clara University) and Roberto Zenit (Brown University), is studying how tiny robots move through bodily fluids. They recently published a paper in the journal Applied Physics Letters detailing new foundational insights.

Michael S. Lehman, professor of practice in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics and director of Lehigh University’s Technical Entrepreneurship (TE) program, received the 2026 Entrepreneurship and Innovation Faculty Achievement Award at the annual 2026 Innovate! Celebrate! event on April 28.

We are pleased to announce that Lehigh ISE Assistant Professor Meng Zhao has been elected as a Director of the Data Analytics and Information Systems Division (DAIS) of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) for 2026-2028.

Recently, MechE Prof. Natasha Vermaak led her team including Profs. L. Valdevit, D. Mumm, X. Shi, at UC Irvine and Prof. M. Taheri-Mousavi at Carnegie Mellon University to host a workshop by invitation only for over 35 leaders in industry, government labs, and academia working at the cutting edge of materials technologies for rotating detonation engines (RDEs) (Figure 1).

Lehigh ISE Professor Ted Ralphs has been elected Chair-Elect of the Bilevel Optimization Society (BOS). He will serve a one-year term as Chair-Elect before assuming a two-year term as Chair, followed by one year as Past Chair. Bilevel optimization is a field of optimization that addresses hierarchical optimization problems in which a leader (upper level) decides the values of a set of decision variables and a follower (lower level) reacts by solving a problem that depends on the leader’s choice.

Keith Moored, a professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, was recently selected to join the Defense Science Study Group (DSSG), a highly selective program that connects leading academic researchers with U.S. national security challenges. Moored is one of just 18 academics selected from more than 150 nominated by universities across the country for the class of 2027-28.

Engineering complex human tissues in a laboratory setting has long been a major goal for regenerative medicine and disease modeling. To help overcome the significant challenge of recreating the intricate environments of the human body, E. Thomas Pashuck, an assistant professor of bioengineering in Lehigh University’s P.C.

Two faculty members from Lehigh University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have contributed to a book recognized with the 2026 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) State-of-the-Art of Civil Engineering Award.